Welcome to your Pro Tips for March, with me, Wayne Diamante! Got a real puzzler on your mind? Looking for relationship, medical or legal advice? Cat problems? Insurance trouble? Hit me up at askwaynediamante@gmail.com, and I’ll do my best to let you know what your problem is. Scout’s honor!
Dear Wayne,
What’s your take on the all hubbub regarding the controversial views recently expressed in Press-Citizen’s op-ed pages?
Sincerely,
Randi
Dear Randi,
I wish every column could be a lighthearted send-up of the travails haunting the troubled and misfortunate, but there comes a time when even comedy must yield the way to serious discussion.
When the fabric of civic discourse in our tight-knit community is worn threadbare, I take it incumbent upon myself, as Iowa City’s premiere columnist for advice-related opinions, to weigh in and take sides.
Many of you already know about, or likely took part in, the spirited online debate frothing up the op-ed pages of the Press-Citizen. Now, with the dust settled and the air clear enough to come to an objective judgment let me state the following: Dr. Susan Dale Wall and her cadre of activist dermatologists should keep their laws off the youthful bodies of America’s tanning community.
In her barely concealed, medical-elitist fashion, Dr. Wall cites empirical evidence and “studies,” likely peer-reviewed, claiming skin cancer rates increase by a mere 87 percent if you’ve ever stepped into a tanning bed under the age of 35. Well, tell that to the glistening throng of our nation’s co-eds on their well-deserved spring breaks in South Padre, Dr. Wall. Go ahead and tell them you saw the best minds of their generation destroyed by madness—starving, hysterical, naked, yet tan and loving it. While you’re at it, why don’t you tell them about the tens of dollars you’ve lined your pockets with by pandering to the freckle-faced, redheaded Cassandras of the anti-tanning lobby?
No, Dr. Wall, your feckless campaign of highbrow, health-mongering ends here. You’d be aware, if you had taken time away from your ivory tower, that spring break and getting tan is all about belonging to a merry band of brazen and lusty youths, romping about with skin as supple as newborn calves; not skulking about in the parking lot with the other has-beens—showing off the russet-hued, time-ravaged atrocities offered by 35 years of solar radiation for those brave enough to look.
Lastly, Dr. Wall wouldn’t have a pulpit to disseminate her melanoma melodrama and wrinkle cream politics from if not for the ham-fisted editorial policies of the Gannett Corporation and the Press-Citizen itself. Her brand of pedantic, tanning-oriented hate speech has no place in the halls of American journalism, op-ed or otherwise, and the Press-Citizen is squarely to blame.
The gloves are off. Every Wednesday, some litterbug asshole discards a copy of that advertising supplement on my driveway, and until now I’ve been able to turn a blind eye. No longer I say! Not a day more! If the Press-Citizen needs to pump up its circulation numbers by spouting the odious views of rogue dermatologists and hiring garbage-oriented hitmen to ravage my driveway, perhaps they should reconsider with whom they’re dealing. Wayne Diamante will stand for journalism of almost any color, just not yellow.
— Wayne
This article was originally published in Little Village issue 173
